A viewer wrote in and asked, “Do you always bend your horses head around when you mount?”
In Episode 16, I showed how I teach my horses a ‘parking brake’ so that they stand still when I am mounting. However, later in the horses training, I want the horse to stand still on his own. The key to this transition is in the statement at 1:15, “Before I’m going to climb on his back he needs to to get these answers correct 100% of the time-without hesitation.”
Many horses don’t stand still when the rider is mounting because they were never taught to stand still. Often people ‘hope’ the horse will stand and then ‘correct’ or punish the horse if they don’t stand…but they don’t teach the horse a cue that means stand still.
I teach my horses that when I bend their head around, without any kind of ‘go forward’ cue, then they should stand still. I do this by bending and holding the bend until the horses feet stay still.
I use this ‘parking brake’ until it becomes a habit for the horse to stand still. As I become confident with them staying still I bend the horse less and less until eventually I am not bending them at all. Should the horse make the mistake later of moving while I mount I can simply remind them of the ‘parking brake.’
If you have ever struggled to get a horse to stand still while you are mounting you may want to consider going back to the basics with that horse.
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Hi Stacy, I have been watching all your video diaries and they are so helpful. I was hoping to see how you trained the lead change and building on the spin. Do you have any video footage of this that you are going to post? Thanks 🙂
I have some footage but not enough to make it complete yet. I am working on it. The spin stuff with Jac is pretty complete except adding speed.
here is one for you…I am sure it will spin ya head around……. how many HATS and BOOTS do you own??? …..lol….
I am sorry I am the only one asking questions on here…. but…I have another one…. and possibly even more questions…so brace yourself…..lol…. but why you are saying it is ok with Jac spinning on the ‘wrong’ foot in episode 29??? …I was hoping someone would ask this again…….oh I have more questions too…lol… will wait to see if someone else ask them first…..thanx!!
I was wondering about the head tilt you brought to our attention in the early training and then you mention it several times in other videos and said you would “work on that later”….. my question is: is he still doing this or have you fixed it and what did you do to fix it?… thanx!